Reality is a harsh mistress. Especially if you're one of any number of social activists. As Ronald Reagan famously said of the left, it's not "...that they're ignorant; it's just that they know so much that isn't so." Not only do they know so much that isn't so, they are loud about it.
And never are they louder than when they are shouting "X-phobia" at anyone they disagree with, for any reason, even if that person they are shouting with is asking for nothing more than an acknowledgment of reality. Not opinion, not speculation - actual reality. As in, facts. Case in point: T-shirts, of all things, that are defending keeping dudes out of women's and girls' sports are now being derided by the (of course) San Francisco Chronicle as "transphobic."
T-shirts defending girls’ sports were condemned in the San Francisco Chronicle as the "transphobic" contender for the next "MAGA hat."
SF Chronicle’s columnist and cultural critic Soleil Ho wrote an opinion piece lamenting the rise of what she calls "anti-trans activewear." The article, headlined, "Is this the next MAGA hat? Transphobic apparel is the new hotness," cited T-shirts reading "Save Girls’ Sports" and "It’s Common Sense. XX ≠ XY."
Two female cross-country athletes at a high school in Riverside, Calif., say they wore the shirts after a transgender athlete, who didn’t consistently attend practices or meet key varsity eligibility requirements, was placed on the varsity team, displacing one of them from her spot. Athletic department school officials allegedly forced the students to remove or conceal the shirts, claiming they created a "hostile" environment and comparing wearing these shirts to wearing a swastika in front of Jewish students.
What utter horse squeeze. The comparison made here is nonsensical; the swastika is, of course, symbolic of Nazi Germany, a regime that slaughtered six million Jews - along with many other groups - before and during World War 2. Nobody is promoting locking up "transgender" people in camps or running them into gas chambers. These athletes and their parents just don't want boys competing unfairly against girls. That's not at all unreasonable. It's a hideously unfair practice, before and after puberty, and should be stopped forthwith. These are facts, and this is all these girls are asking.
While we're at it, let's look at the word "transphobic," as it is yet another piece of utter horse squeeze. The suffix "phobic" implies an irrational fear. Nobody is afraid of these "transgender players." Nobody is acting irrationally towards them; the irrationality is all on the other side. These are students and parents who are, in concordance with their rights under the First Amendment, protesting an unfair policy on the part of their school district. And, since public schools are a de facto branch of government, the First Amendment applies here.
See Related: Joe Biden's Final Acts As President Have the Transgender Community in a Tizzy
Back to Soleil Ho and her ridiculous, uninformed article. She makes some claims therein about sex being a "spectrum." Well, speaking as a biologist, I can tell you that she's full of the stuff one finds under the south end of a northbound bull. But don't take it from me; take it from another target of Ho's outrage, former Levi's exec Jennifer Sey, who now runs a sportswear company called XX-XY Athletics:
This article wins for the dumbest thing I've read this year so far.
— Jennifer Sey (@JenniferSey) January 3, 2025
Though I'm ok with the headline. Yes truth is the new "hotness."
Here's a fun part:
"Studies of human genetics show that sex, like gender, is a spectrum, and the cases of female athletes like Algerian boxer… pic.twitter.com/ZD0eb1WVKp
The tweet continues:
"Studies of human genetics show that sex, like gender, is a spectrum, and the cases of female athletes like Algerian boxer Imane Khelif show that there are many, many ways a woman can look."
No -- studies do not show that sex is a spectrum. How do people get away with writing such blatant falsehoods in an actual newspaper?
Yes there are many ways a woman 'can look.' That isn't what's at play here. In fact, we'd really like it if this "movement" stopped telling more masculine girls that they are probably boys.
Jennifer Sey is correct. Sex is not a spectrum - not in mammals. In case Soliel Ho isn't aware of the fact, humans are mammals, and mammals are sexually bipolar. There are two sexes. Male and female. In primates - humans are primates - sex is determined by one set of chromosomes that have two expressions. XY is male, and XX is female. One can "identify" as a grunion, but these facts do not change.
These are facts. Soliel Ho and her fellow "transgender" activists can scream until they are blue in the face, and they can't change that. Yes, there are some very rare genetic abnormalities, normally a polysomy of the sex chromosomes, that can lead to some sexual ambiguities - but as stated, those are rare, and one does not make policy based on extremely rare abnormalities, especially when that policy allows boys to claim to be girls and game the system for varsity team slots, awards, and scholarships to which they are not entitled.
Facts are facts. The Law of Identity applies; a thing is what it is and cannot be otherwise. As Ayn Rand put it, A=A. A man is a man, and a woman is a woman. For myself, I say, Vive la difference! But the fight for fairness in women's and girls' sports continues, and these athletes and parents must never give up, never surrender, wear those shirts, and if anyone takes exception, spit in their eye (metaphorically) and dare them to do anything about it.
